Here's a quirky find from the National Archives: the United States Air Force's 1956 plan to build a saucer-shaped aircraft that would zip across the skies with the greatest of ease. As the Archives explain of "Project 1794, Final Development Summary Report":

The Air Force had contracted the work out to a Canadian company, Avro Aircraft Limited in Ontario, to construct the disk-shaped craft. According to the same report, it was designed to be a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) plane designed to reach a top speed of Mach 4, with a ceiling of over 100,000 feet, and a range of over 1,000 nautical miles.

And how much would this entire enterprise cost? From Project 1794:

Development and production aspects are briefly reviewed and an outline new program broader in scope than the study now completed is presented (to dovetail with the development envisaged), together with an accompanying cost estimate. This estimate covers a period of 18 to 24 months in the total amount of $3,168,000.

You can read more at the National Archives. It must be noted that  even in the public sphere of the 1950s  flying saucers were touted as the next great innovation in commuter transportation.

I don't know who licensed the molds but apparently this was THE kit and available for decades (including when I was growing up). Don't recall what the box looked like, probably something more like this (without the "limited edition" disclaimer).

Well... Technically, at least from the standpoint of some of those on the receiving end, the U.S. Air Force has used quite a few UFO’s. WE call them Stealth Fighters and Stealth Bombers. Those on the receiving end “never knew what hit them”.

18
posted on 10/08/2012 8:36:44 PM PDT
by Paul R.
(We are in a break in an Ice Age. A brief break at that...)

It's not really news. I remember reading about the AVRO disk in a book called: Flying Saucers, Serious Business by Frank Edwards in 1968 or 1969. The stability problems with the Air Force prototypes were cited by UFO aficionados as proof that flying saucers really had to have some special sauce from an "advanced technology."

20
posted on 10/08/2012 9:01:55 PM PDT
by FredZarguna
(Andrew Sullivan. The blind pig who found a truffle on 9/11.)

Thanks for the ping. This concept was essentially a ducted fan. They built two small prototypes, one of which I have seen in the Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland. Interesting idea, but it didn’t fly out of ground effect.

My brother retired from the Air Force and he was at some of those sites out in the deserts of Nevada and Utah.

He said they’d stage fun (after beers) by taking trucks with junk on them and covering them with tarps and then drive them into the gates and “drop” the tarp and scramble to put the parts (many covered in foil) back onto the truck and into a hangar.

They’d have a good laugh knowing the Art Bell folks were watching.

28
posted on 10/08/2012 9:55:44 PM PDT
by Fledermaus
(Democrats are dangerous and evil. Republicans are just useful idiots.)

Thanks DogByte6RER. The WWII-era German flying saucer reportedly exceeded the speed of sound during flight tests, but of course it isn’t well documented. It’s very, very lucky that Herr Schickelgruber was an drooling incompetent in the military sphere.

Films of the AVRO have been around for years. The thing was so unstable that they had to tether it, and only “fly” a couple feet off the ground. The thing was a complete boondoggle.
Tesla claimed he could build one though, in 1919!
“I am now planning aerial machines devoid of supporters planes, ailerons, propellers and other external attachments, which will be capable of immense speeds.”

Yawn. There’s a USAF flying saucer prototype on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton OH. Its in the research plane hangar on the Wright Field reservation. To see it you need to get to the museum early and register for one of the hourly bus trips over there. The saucer is neat, but seems pretty small and unimpresive. Maybe because it’s sitting next to the XB-70.

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